Pro-cycling thread

Ha! Indeed.

It's probably best for my workload that there isn't cycling on all day. I don't have a boss to tell me to stop watching the fucking cycling.

Is Thomas targeting the Giro? Or Landa? On the front of PC mag recently they led with "It's time for me to target a GT victory", or words to that effect.

Both. Joint team leadership. Which makes sense given how the Giro usually goes for Sky.

Eurosport are showing every stage of the Tour from beginning to end this year. That's a lot of Carlton and Sean but at least we'll get to see how the breaks form.
tiz-cycling.racing have good quality coverage of Paris-Nice and Tirreno an hour or two after they finish, normally the last hour of P-N and two hours of T-A.
Thomas is definitely clean, apart from his magic wrist band. Convicted doper Simon Yates did a great ride today though.
I'm not sure why Sky think Thomas can get on the podium at the Giro. Or if they really do. There are about half a dozen riders at Sky who have a better record in Grand Tours than he does. I'm tempted to think they want to let him try just to prove he can't do it and force him to choose between staying as a super domestique or leaving since he's probably not their best bet in the classics anymore either.

Do they really think he can get on the podium? I thought he was being used as super domestique for Froome.

At the Giro; Froome is not riding it. Landa is.

Shows how much I've been paying attention

I think it's partly that, but I also think he's earnt the chance to have a crack at the GC on a three week stage race based on his results in shorter stage races.

I don't know how he'll fare, but he's chosen to ride the Giro in a year when it's going to have its strongest line up in years.

Lol at convicted doper Simon Yates.
Fell for the guy. What shit to be tagged with because of someone else's fuck up. I hope he got a good price on his contract renewal.

At least he's guaranteed never to ride for Sky.

Perhaps because of his nationality or because of his lack of English, Zakarin is not being talked about much. But of all the up and comers he has the best combination of time trialling and climbing skills. I can see him getting a GT win in the next year or two. Sadly, he really is a convicted doper so for the next five or ten years another grand tour winner will be linked with drugs.
I'm still not convinced about Thomas. He won Paris-Nice (by 4 seconds from Contador) after the big mountain stage was cancelled and a couple of wins in Algarve don't persuade me much.

Everyone bitches and moans about Kirby, Kelly, Ligget and Sherwen, but...

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I like Sean Kelly. Hatch is best of a bad bunch. Would like to see Backstedt and Millar on the comms more often.

Carlton Kirby is the fucking pits.

Backstedt and Millar

This. And the GCN guys.

At least Hatch recognises he makes mistakes in rider identification and corrects them. Kirby will insist it's the rider he erroneously identified for the rest of the race/stage.

I used to quite like Kirby, but recently his constant rambling about Simon fucking Clarke has done me in, he's mentioned him every single stage so far in the Tirreno and constantly talks him up for Milan San Remo... he has 4 pro wins.

Commentators are a bit like dopers - if you think it's bad now, you should have lived through the EPO/Duffield era.
Kirby has, at least, somehow, got Brian Smith to make a joke or two this week. That's something.
I think Millar is probably too busy looking at himself in the mirror to ever commit to anything else.

Fuck Sake!! Simon Clarke is in the break....

Wait til he gets away on the Cipressa and CK spaffs his pants.

Superb stage in Tirreno-Adriatico, awesome race and for a moment or two I thought some else apart from Sagan would win it

incredible win today by Sagan in Tirreno, catching the climbers back after getting dropped on the last steep 'wall' and catching his breath.

Contador is beasting Paris Nice. Fucking balls out performance.

And the attacks behind are relentless.

fuuuuu... so excite.

Henao. By 2 seconds.